As more and more people become aware of what an intellectual cesspool Conservapedia is, the powers that be have to resort to ever more extreme measures to preserve the extremist orthodoxy on their "Trus(t)worthy Encyclopedia". A major weapon in their arsenal is the massive IP range block, which is essentially just a way of rescinding the "open editing" policy. The number of people they can trust to preserve the ideological purity of their website keeps shrinking (especially as one editor after another turns out to be a sensible person, or, as they like to say, a "traitor"), so they have to block out the rest of the world.

The principal way this is done is with the IP range block. All editors' IP (Internet Protocol) addresses are noted by the wiki software, and anyone they don't like can be banned. In their neverending paranoia, escalating daily, to prevent that user from re-registering under a different name, the IP address is blocked. For instance, if Conservapedia sysops hate Bill, and Bill lives in the same city as James (who perhaps share their views[2]), and James signs up for Conservapedia, by sysop logic, James must be Bill, and he will be blocked asap. Because IP addresses are often assigned randomly from large blocks by ISPs (Internet Service Providers; companies like Comcast, Verizon, and AT&T) entire ranges are often blocked. This has the property of blacking out entire ISPs, cities, colleges, companies, and countries. But the powers that be don't care; they already have all the users that they feel they can trust. In any case, colleges and foreign countries are particularly ideologically suspect.

The use of range blocks appears to have become extremely widespread around December 2008. As of this writing (June 2009), the number of IP addresses that have been blocked TEN MILLIONTWENTY MILLIONTWENTY ONE MILLION. That is far in excess of the number of users, number of existing pages or even the number of page edits on Conservapedia (less than 700,000), and represents 1 IP address blocked for every 5.35 page views.

IPs blocked at CP and WP

block periods of non-infinite range blocks at CP and WP

Wikipedia issues IP range blocks, too. But there are a few decisive differences:

the periods of the blocks are generally much shorter at Wikipedia than at Conservapedia. For instance, half of the /16 ranges are blocked for less than one day, while typically such a block at Conservapedia will last for six months!

even if your IP is blocked at Wikipedia, most times you're only prevented from anonymous editing. You may still be allowed to edit after logging in. Conservapedia doesn't allow anonymous editing in the first place, and when your IP is blocked, you cannot edit. Period.

though Wikipedia dwarfs Conservapedia in virtually every category, there are more IP numbers blocked at Conservapedia than at the English division of Wikipedia.

The following are places that Conservapedia can no longer be edited from, or are particularly untrusworthy. Conservapedia sysops have begun to assume by mere geographical location that users are sockpuppets of each other.

We would like to have thought that holding libraries hostage is a level to which Conservapedia would not stoop. We were wrong. Since this was not an IP block, we don't know what library it was, but, being a "sockpuppet" block, it was apparently aimed at some IP or IP range.

Colleges and universities receive particularly bad treatment; this may be due to the generally higher level of intellect to be found there. While our data are not conclusive, it appears that the following universities are currently blocked. This list may not be entirely accurate due to problems determining the location corresponding to an IP address.

Alaska, USA:Not any city but the entire state. Home to the infamous Icewedge and also to Helios, Nolife, and Opcn three more users well hated by Conservapedia.

Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada: This beautiful seaside city is home to the notorious Halifax Troll. Sysops are convinced that any IP from this address is a sockpuppet with his latest iteration in cp:user:DemocraticUnderground. As Karajou has said to other sysops, "We need to block this man permanently. We've got to do a blanket block of his IP, because all he is doing is hanging up, dialing again under a slightly-different IP, and damaging the site." Update: 65,536 IP addresses in Halifax are blocked. BTW Karajou, who says the Troll is even a man? Maybe its a smoking hot female (not that you'll ever know what that is anyways).

Atlanta, Georgia, USA: the notoriously evil liberal AmesG grew up in Atlanta, leading Karajou to conclude that any user in Atlanta is possibly AmesG. All such users are under suspicion and likely to be blocked for the slightest misstep.

Houston, Texas, USA: despite the fact that Houston is one of the largest cities in America (in the top 5), sysop and conspiracy theorist RobS is convinced that any user from Houston is the same AmesG. Houston also has the third largest, and fastest growing, legal market in America; regardless, any Houstonian involved in this market must be AmesG. So if you're from Houston, and especially if you're also involved in law, you will be blocked or ignored.

New York, New York, USA: given this logic, it won't be long until all 10 million New Yorkers are suspicious and amenable to blocking-on-sight. However, this might finally rid Conservapedia of Ed Poor.

San Francisco, California, USA:every citizen of San Francisco is a homosexual Jewish liberal. This includes well known liberals like Michael Savage.

More of a footnote and not quite enough for its own article, but when it comes to non-US countries, CP sysops are much more radical with their banhammer:

Canada: Apparently, according to Conservapedia, the Halifax troll is now in Sydney, Nova Scotia, and as a result Karajou blocks another 65,000 ip addresses. This now brings the total up to almost 200,000 ip addresses blocked because of the Halifax troll. Update Apparently 142.16.0.0/16 is also used by the halifax troll, despite being registered to the Government of British Columbia.

Germany: It looks like CP thinks that no German other than Sid would ever want to visit Conservapedia, so any German IP (even if it's just a proxy located in Germany) just has to belong to him (as Peter Bird found out).